Is Hubitat zwave really that terrible?

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I want to chime in because like the original poster, I was at wits end trying to get a coherent system for a client up and running. I have a decent amount of experience with HomeKit, Caséta, and Smartthings. (I also have a lot of technical experience with wireless control systems including RA2, BT/BLE, WiFi, and proprietary wireless control systems in a factory setting.) But, I wanted local control, local access for security reasons and after a lot of research and testing in a "lab" setting, I landed on Hubitat. My adventures lasted about 3 months until I ended up with a system that is reliable... with a few caveats. And there was a point in time where I was so disgusted with Hubitat that I was about to move to Home Assistant or something else.

First, house size and construction have an insane impact on the reliability of your system. In two test situations (one was my office - about 400 sq ft - and the other was a 4k sq ft home) I had no issues adding and controlling devices. BUT, I was only adding and controlling about 12 devices. In my real-world, client home situation, I have over 120 devices (which is theoretically do-able off one hub), but the house is 7k sq ft. and even though there aren't construction materials that create natural RF, one hub and extenders simply didn't work.

Second, the original system I built had the hub literally in the center of the home and 5 Aeotec Range Extender 7s installed in locations where we were able to determine that we might have signal propagation and penetration issues. This worked until we reached ~60 devices. After that, it was a complete s-show.

Third, we only used Leviton, Aeotec, and originally Schlage door locks. I have always been happy with Aeotec and still am. I'm not sure if our choice of Leviton was a good idea or bad, but we have all of the switches, dimmers, and fan controls finally working (in a setup that I'll describe in a few more sentences). Schlage is a joke when it comes to Z-Wave. I had no clue what acrobatics Samsung/SmartThings had to do to get those locks working in other installations, but I won't be using their Z-Wave products again. It is too bad because they are physically well built and very secure from a lock picking standpoint (based upon reviews). We moved this new installation to Yale and Kwikset and have been very happy.

Fourth, we went scorched earth, divided the home into three zones and used one hub as a master with no actual devices connected to it. Why? Well, the reality is that regardless of what anyone says or what any company states, wireless is a nightmare and black magic. The potential for RF interference and problems is limitless. Once you get beyond 500 sq ft, it is almost impossible to determine where interference is coming from without very good tools (which we don't have for Z-Wave and don't know if exist).

Each working hub has two Aeotec Range Extender 7s and manage a maximum of 60 devices. One hub is solely dedicated to door locks because those devices happen to be located in one geographic location in the house (simply the way the house is built). The three "linked" hubs that have Z-wave devices attached then share those devices to the "master" hub and that hub does all of the automation.

Currently, the only devices that are not Aeotec, Yale, Kwikset, or Leviton are a few Fibaro motion sensors that we are testing (and are not yet happy with).

Lessons learned:

  • location in respect to a hub matters
  • distance matters regardless of range extenders
  • STOP the moment you start seeing ghost devices. I don't know how it happens, but that is one problem we spent DAYS trying to figure out. I swear that we only started seeing ghost devices after adding about 45 to any hub, but we were working over the course of days and with two guys, so I am not sure if it was user error or an actual issue.
  • interference comes from the least likely places. E.G. we had a hub 10 ft away from duct work, appliances, metal objects and it was hit or miss with changing switch states. We moved it to a location another 10 ft away that was non-symmetric with the location of most of the devices it is controlling and problems went away. Sometimes symmetry doesn't matter at all (which I know from building long-range wireless links, but I didn't think it would be the case over such short distances, relatively speaking).
  • The Z-Wave device manufacturer matters. Aeotec has almost always been bullet proof for me (minus issues I have with battery drain on some of the multi sensor 6 devices we use). I can't speak to 99% of what Hubitat is compatible with, but I can say that I'll never use Schlage Z-wave devices again.
  • The theoretical maximums of devices seems to have a distance/geographic range and I have no clue what that metric is or how you'd plan.

Should we need 4 hubs in a large house? I don't know. I never came across any examples or postings where that was the case. But, our system finally works reliably. When we build the next system for a house, we are going to allow no more than 1500 sq ft per hub. That is until we determine that it is possible and reliable to build out systems differently. We literally spent weeks troubleshooting switches that would work and then not work. For $150 retail (sometimes $125), it is not worth the time for us to buy fewer hubs.

I know this was a very long post, but your frustration mirrors what ours/mine was. The whole ghost device issue w/ C7 hubs is bs, in my opinion. But, I have a feeling that it is the devil in Z-wave and really outside of Hubitat's control. It was the most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with. I'd suggest evaluating the size of the space you are trying to manage and starting over. We would have saved weeks of work and phone calls had we done so ourselves...

To answer the question of your post directly: I think Hubitat is the best of a very hard to manage and messy product platform. I think Z-Wave and the spec around Z-Wave is ... problematic. Lots of versions, lots of manufacturers, and it will always be very difficult to test so many devices in a minimum number of environments that would make guidance reliable. Home Assistant is probably the next best option, but I can't imagine relying on it with no real commercial support. Hubitat is far from polished, but I still think they are the best choice for Z-Wave and Zigbee local control. (A lot of it has to do with the fact that it is a commercially available device, has a certain level of commercial support, and tries to help where it can.) I am just left with a very sour taste in my mouth, too, having struggled with ghost devices for so long and - after rebuilding and making sure none got attached to the new setup - realizing how detrimental they are to a working system.

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42

Thx snfettig, read it very carefully and idd same experience (not that big house though). With Smartthings same setup didnt have problem with zwave so guess is not fault in zWave rather than how is implemented by Hubitat, so the request to fix it (eventhough some smart guy above claim that thousand of users are happy... ;).
Indeed the Hubitat platform has great potential, but needs fixing especially on zWave front. If they launch paid service in this beta-shape I bet will get unpleasantly surprised by expectation/result ratio, which usually happens with half cooked meal.
Also Hubitat needs to be more transparent on what they work and when they expect to ETA, so users to swallow the bitter pill more easily.

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2 more to go, that's progress. Rinse and repeat should get you there, for now. And once your system is free of ghosts, your Z-wave reliability will follow. The problem is that we cannot replicate these issues in our internal environments, so is hard to fix something that we cannot see. That doesn't mean our engineers have stopped trying, though.

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How much?

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that much. hope you got the point.

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Not really.

Talk is cheap though, so I suppose that’s what you meant.

But if you ever choose to put your money where your mouth is, I think they’re actually going to release the first of their paid services soon, so just let me know before then.

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will do. now you may go away :wink:

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Thanks for posting this! Great to hear your experiences.. definitely taking notes.

I too support some clients with largish houses and decent size properties including a 3 story 3500+ sqft house built in 1890... (plaster lath for the WIN!)

I went with all Zooz (for lighting) and GE (for fans) switches/dimmers due to the "toggle" style requested by the homeowner. 61+ in all - electrician installed everything back in August but I only paired first floor and basement at first, Definitely had some troubles thanks to older firmware (both device and HE) and my lack of experience with C-7 quirks. Later added repeaters before pairing the rest of the switches/dimmers. Using one C-7 hub centered on the first floor. Remarkably things seem to be working and are responsive. I did add a C-5 to the detached garage to handle things due to the distance involved from the main house.

Have since added some Zigbee devices as well including Iris plugs, NYCE motion sensors and Konke Humidity sensors. Those too are working well.

I would not hesitate to use multiple hubs either by location or type depending on the situation if necessary. Based on my experience that setup works really well.

Instead of a master hub I use Node-RED running on a "companion" server (Raspberry PI) for all my rules/apps. This has many benefits including flexibility in managing hardware/software resources, reduction in hub overhead (memory etc), expanded capabilities by integration with a wide variety of systems some not directly compatible with HE, and ability to provide services such as Homekit integration via Homebridge and Wireguard VPN among others.

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I have a C4 and a C7 in a 3-story 4800sqft house. (Probably didn't need a second hub, but I wanted a C7 so...) Z-Wave works great. I have maybe 30 z-wave devices between the two hubs.

I also have a C7 in an 1800 sqft condo. Fewer devices... Maybe 10 z-wave devices. Also works great.

Some people make broad assumptions from their individual experiences. ¯\(ツ)/¯

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The staff at HE have always maintained that a single hub should be sufficient for most size houses. This is the baseline position.

In my experience with my personal setup and my residential clients with larger houses things are a lot more reliable/resilient with a multi-hub configuration. I've done enough installations that I am fairly confident in my assessment of this. I would prefer to "overbuild" up front for greater extensibility and protection rather than having to go back and request additional $$$ afterwards.

I am always willing to reconsider given new evidence.. :smile:

Also anecdotal evidence is anecdotal so ymmv of course... :rofl:

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If you had said 1892 you would have described my house. Which explains my love of Lutron Caseta no neutral switches!

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Fun story - the painter for that house after stripping off some wallpaper in a stairwell found another painter's title and signature underneath dated 1890..

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Like I said, unless someone comes here and complains, it gets dropped, or at least that's the treatment I consistently receive.
I know all the fanboy ambassadors will come out to defend, and that's how it works. Instead of fixing things, label the person the problem.

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We're all very aware of the problems with z-wave but you keep focusing on that it's hubitat's fault when it's really not. You say that they should advocate to si labs. They have but are largely ignored due to their size. You want someone to advocate, get HA or Samsung to complain. You want to necro a thread just to shout into the wind then accuse Hubitat of not giving support even though honestly you couldn't get better support from any other company. But hey, if you wanna play it that way, that's on you. It only makes you look childish and really doesn't affect anyone else.

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I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. But good luck.

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Yep, guilty as charged on the whole fanboi thing.. I accept your label - I realize it's easier than solving issues or having a meaningful discussion especially if you are frustrated. Wish I could help further.. other than to recommend HA.

Not sure I'm seeing where you are being targeted as the problem though, only the posts that are inflammatory.. What's the point? Every large home automation system is complex. Z-Wave def has it's share of problems.. as do the other protocols.

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I too would like to echo @erktrek .
I have done a few VERY large homes, and since the cost of 3 hubs is a lot less (by orders of magnitude) what the client was paying for the renovation, for those jobs as part of my proposal, I put in for 3 hubs - Zigbbe, Zwave and Control.
Yes, the control hub is not very loaded, but still, I didn't want simple hardware to stand in the way of a successful job.
Another key point:
I tend to make my home automation rules very simple - rarely are they complicated. The reason: in general I have found that most clients don't want complicated, sophisticated rules. In most situations, even Basic Rules is enough. And, are the easiest to explain to a client.
The "KISS" rule may be the most overlooked rule in Home Automation.

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